nbc30 has an article, gallery and video of Pat Bertoletti at Friday’s goldenpalace.net ice cream contest. The article confuses pounds with gallons.

ESPN displayed a very brief clip of Pat Bertoletti (1 second at most) at the goldenpalace.net ice cream eating contest was shown on the Monday night / Tuesday morning Sportcenter. There might have been a longer video on an earlier edition of sportscenter.

Pat Bertoletti was also named athlete of the week by a Saint Louis Post Dispatch columnist.

The Arizona Reporter has a preview of Saturday’s Nathan’s qualifier in Tempe. Rich LeFevre and Ron Koch are expected. Erik Denmark and Andrew Lane have also announced they plan to attend.

Video from Jason Fagone’s interview on CNN Tuesday morning promoting “Horsmen of the Esophagus” is available at http://www.cnn.com/video/ (Bottom of page under Best of TV)

I was going to write a post about the claim by the Fuddrucker at the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut that their 29.6 pound burger is the world’s largest commercially available burger when the Mount Olympus burger at the Clinton Station Diner in New Jersey weighs 20 pounds more, but Megamunch has beat me to it. Megamunch has a chart comparing the world’s largest burgers from foodmarket.com which I had not seen before. The chart claims that the Clinton Station Diner will award $500 to the first quintet of eaters to finish a Mount Olympus in under three hours, which is not mentioned on their website.

A Nathan’s qualifier will be held on June 22 in West Chester, PA (suburban Philadelphia). The qualifier will be televised on the shopping channel QVC, making it the first qualifier broadcast nationwide. It will be interesting to see what merchandise is sold during this appearance.

IFOCE has announced two new websites, competitiveeatingevents.com and competitiveeating.net in conjunction with the new qualifier. The first website has travel information for IFOCE contests. competitiveeating.net has a list of the websites of some IFOCE members in which the home pages of Sonya Thomas, Erik Denmark, Andrew Lane and Brian Seiken along with the Whaler’s fan blog for Tim Janus are not found. The list claims to only include “family friendly” websites which might be the reason why the last two of those web sites were omitted, but I have never seen anything on the first three home pages that was not G-rated. Brian Subich’s home page appears despite not having been updated since 2005 when I last viewed it.

Liz asked Sonya Thomas a few questions after her victory in the Nathan’s Philadelphia qualifier last Saturday.

Philly.com reports that “Swallow Your Pride”, a documentary about Bill “El Wingador” Simmons winning his fifth Wing Bowl crown in Wing Bowl 13, will be screened at the First Glance Film Festival in Philadelphia on Sunday night. Tickets are $10. Porn star/ former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey stars in a movie to be screened Saturday night.

I have added the Babelfish translation service by Alta Vista to the blog. Click on the flag in the right hand column to translate the blog into the language corresponding to the flag.

If anyone recorded a video of the last week’s pickle contest at the Carnegie Deli from start to finish I would like to host it on this website in order to resolve the controversy about the duration of that event. Kevin Lipsitz had the Hartford Nathan’s qualifier recorded in its entirety so hopefully he has a complete video of the pickle contest. If any participant or spectator timed the contest with a stopwatch, please report your results in the comments to this post.

The Gothamist blog has an entry about today’s Schnack Stahl-Meyer 30 inch Hot Dog Eating Contest in Brooklyn. Joe Menchetti easily defended his title and won $500 by finishing his megafrankfurter in 1 minute 53 seconds.

Tien Mao has also has a blog entry and gallery of the contest.

Updated May 30, 3:21 PM - Jesse has another gallery of the contest.

Today’s new poll asks your opinion on the maximum number of hot dogs and buns a homo sapiens could eat in 12 minutes without suffering internal damage.

This week’s edition of AERA magazine (published by the Asahi Tribune) has a profile of Miyake Tomoko, the 4th place finisher in the “Gluttonous Queen” contest. Miyake’s listed weight of 77 lb (35 kg) makes Sonya Thomas and “Gal” Sone appear amazonic in comparison. The blog for Miyake’s favorite restaurant has an entry announcing the publication of the article

The Shanghai Daily reports that Miyuki Iwata (岩田ミユキ) , runner up in last month’s “Gluttonous Queen” contest, won the Asia Eating Contest held at the Shanghai Jiuguang Department Store. Iwata’s non-contest meals are at least as impressive as her contest performance. A typical meal for her weighs 6kg (13.2 lb, more than Denny’s 96er burger) She claims to spend most of her salary on food and once spent $3,548 on food one month. This is Iwata’s second Chinese contest in 2006; she won a Hong Kong contest in January.

Updated 10:52 PM: China Daily has a photo gallery of the contest

Updated May 29 12:55 AM: Shanghaist has a blog entry about the contest.

Updated May 30 12:48 AM: People’s Daily has a photo gallery

A Chinese language report and preview are also available

Brian Seiken has a gallery and video clip and Krista has a gallery of Friday’s ice cream eating contest. Krista will have a report on the contest for urbanhonking/digest.

Philly.com has an article about yesterday’s Nathan’s qualifier at Independence Hall and a short interview with Sonya Thomas. Sonya expresses disappointment that she failed to break her personal record of 37 hot dogs.

Ohio.com has a report from yesterday’s House of Blues Wing Eating Championship at the BBQ and Music Fest at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Chip Simpson easily won the contest, beating out David “Brickhouse” Braunstein.

The Los Angeles Times has a review of “Eat This Book” and “Horsemen of the Esophagus”

Yesterday’s edition of the Washington Post Express has an interview with Sonya Thomas. The article is not available online in HTML format, but the entire issue is available in PDF format. I have made a screen capture of the page that Sonya’s interview is on if you do not want to download the entire document.

from IFOCE.com, sonyatheblackwidow.com & Brian Seiken

Philadelphia Nathan’s qualifier results, Independence Hall Visitor Center

1) Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas 36.5 hot dogs
2) “Humble” Bob Shoudt 28
3) “Big” Brian Subich 25
4) Pat “from Moonachie” Philbin 24

It used to be that 24 hot dogs would almost certainly guarantee a victory in a qualifier, but that amount did not place in the top three in this event.

Brian Subich turns in an impressive performance and justifies his decision to turn down an arena football contract from the winless Steubenville Stampede.

For the second straight year the amount Sonya Thomas ate in a qualifier was virtually equal to the amount she ate in the previous year’s finals. Sonya set a women’s record with 37 hot dogs in the 2005 finals. She did 32 in last year’s Norfolk qualifier and the 2004 finals.

Updated 6:54 PM - 5th place finisher steakbellie has a first person report of the contest on his blog

A writer from the San Francisco Chronicle reports on a training session in which Joey Chestnut ate 40 hot dogs in less than 9 and a half minutes. One of the pictures shows the trophy area of Joey Chestnut’s apartment.

The BBC website has an article and audio clip about Pat Bertoletti’s record setting performance at the goldenpalace.net ice cream eating contest yesterday.

Marketwire has a press release listing the top four finishers in today’s ice cream eating contest. A video clip of the contest with brief interviews of Pat Bertoletti and Crazy Legs Conti is also available.

The East Hartford Gazette has a good (with the exception of calling Lerman Don “The Eater” Moses) writeup of last Saturday’s Nathan’s qualifier. There were PETA protesters at the contest. I did not realize that the Elvis impersonator was Bill Stobierski.

Jason Fagone will appear on NPR’s Weekend Edition - Saturday tomorrow. He expects his segment will start at 8:40 am. A podcast should be available after the broadcast.

from IFOCE.com

1) Pat Bertoletti 1.75 gallons
2) Crazy Legs Conti 1.5 gallons
3) Tim “Eater X” Janus 1.25 gallons

Pat almost doubles the previous IFOCE ice cream record of 1 gallon 9 oz. in 12 minutes set by Cookie Jarvis despite having only 8 minutes for his contest.